Six Bad Things ht-2

by Charlie Huston

  My mad money.

  And I am mad now, make no mistake, I am mad as hell.

  THERE WAS a moment as Mickey fell away from me, arms outstretched, hands grasping, where I might easily have grabbed him and pulled him to safety. But I didn’t try. I watched his body twist in the air and his arms flail as he tried to brace himself for the first impact. He crashed against the steps and his head jerked and slapped the stones. He bounced and tumbled all the way down, blood pinwheeling from his body.

  And right there, I answered the old question, What would you do if someone threatened your family?

  I’d kill him.

  I PUT the money back into the packing case, cut the cardboard box so that it lies flat on the floor, then place the case on top of it. I wrap the case in cardboard and enough reinforced packing tape that you’d have to saw your way through. That done, I get into the shower and rinse off all the sweat and sand stuck to my body. Finally, when all the cleaning is done and the box is standing near the door and I’ve tugged a sarong around my body, I take the lantern out onto the porch, light a cigarette, and open the Ziploc.

  The first thing I pull out is the police photo of the bruises on Yvonne’s dead body. Nowhere to go from there but up.

  I haven’t looked at the photo for years. I haven’t needed to. I can see it whenever I want to, just by closing my eyes. Now, I look at it, study it, close my eyes and see the same pattern of bruises flashed against the inside of my eyelids. I will never look at it again. With my eyes still closed, I tear the photo into eighths. I open my eyes, put the pieces in my ashtray, and set a match to them.

  – Sorry, baby.

  But I don’t really need to apologize. Not to her. Not for this. She would have approved of this gesture, would have done it herself long ago. Yvonne Ann Cross, not one for carrying ghosts around.

  Next are three business cards.

  First: Detective Lieutenant Roman. Roman, the hero cop gone bad who orchestrated the slaughter at Paul’s Bar. A snapshot from my memory: a pile of bodies, my friends, on the floor.

  Second: Ed. Brother of Paris. The DuRantes. Bank robbers. Killers. A snatch of brain-movie: In their car, bullets from my gun erasing Ed’s face. Paris’s last word, his brother’s name.

  I toss the cards on the tiny fire and look at the third.

  Third: A glossy black card with the name Mario embossed in gold gothic script. I smile, remember pot smoke and disco music in the back of his Lincoln as he drove me to the airport and the plane that brought me to Mexico. Nice guy, Mario. I burn him.

  I take an envelope from the bag. Inside: the ID and credit cards of John Peter Carlyle, a man who never was. The custom-made identity I came to Mexico with. I won’t be able to travel in Mexico as the man I’ve been for two years, not while the cops are looking into Mickey’s death. My real name isn’t an option. But I might be able to get away with being Carlyle again. I flip open the passport, look at the photo. I’m twenty pounds heavier now, an even two hundred, bulked up through the shoulders and chest from all the swimming, but with a little roll of rice and beans around the middle. The hair that was buzzed and bleached in this photo is now a sun-lightened brown and collar length. Once clean-shaven, I now have a short beard. And the tattoos. Tattoos scattered across my chest and down my arms, tattoos that were meant to help hide me, but have become a way of marking the passage of time. I don’t look anything like this photo. I can cut my hair and shave so I look more like Carlyle, but I will also look more like the man I was, the man wanted for murder. Fuck it, the passport’s date of issue is years old, there’s no reason I shouldn’t look different. I stuff it and the rest of Carlyle back into his envelope and set him aside. There’s only one piece of paper left in the Ziploc.

  United Flight #84

  12/20/00

  Depart: New York JFK 8:25 AM

  Arrive: Oakland 11:47 AM

  A ticket home, old and out of date. It had been meant to get me there for Christmas. I didn’t make it that time, maybe this time I will. It burns quickly.

  I FILL out the International Airway Bill, stopping for a moment when I get to the boxes where I’m supposed to write in the total value for carriage and customs. If I value this thing at less then two hundred bucks, it may very well zip past customs with nary a look. Then again, in the U.S.A.’s current state of heightened security, some clever boy could notice that a guy in Mexico has paid more to ship this box than the stated value of the contents. And that is an invitation to have this thing ripped open by people wearing yellow biohazard suits. Option two: value it at a couple grand, fill out all the supporting documentation, have it go through customs the old-fashioned way. Of course, this involves someone picking it up at a post office in the destination city to pay the duty fees. A great way to get ambushed by Feds. Tricky. This is why I’m at the Pakmail in Cancun, talking to Mercedes. She is going to help me ship four million dollars to America via FedEx.

  I finish the Airway Bill, putting the value at two thousand and listing the contents as books. I take a piece of paper from my wallet. It lists the titles of a number of difficult-to-find to semi-rare Mexican art and history books I’ve been collecting. The titles, that is, not the books. I write those titles on the Pro Forma Invoice. To make things extra special tidy, I also have a Certificate of Origin that I had notarized earlier when I stopped by my bank to pick up a few things.

  I lift the box onto the scale and Mercedes makes a little woof sound when it tips in at over sixty kilos. She makes the sound again when I hand her the Airway Bill and she sees the destination. Like most service workers in Cancun, her English is good. She says everything with a little song. I like it.

  – Lotta money.

  I sing back at her.

  – Lotta money. You got that right.

  She giggles, smoothes the various shipping labels onto the box, hands me my copies, and rings me up for something more than two thousand pesos. I pay in dollars. No big deal in Cancun. She takes another look at the invoice.

  – Your friend likes to read.

  – I don’t know, he just bought ’em from me.

  – eBay?

  – Yeah.

  – I love eBay. Bought these on eBay.

  She’s pointing at her earrings. I bend down to get a closer look. They’re little Miami Dolphins dolphins, leaping through the air, wearing tiny football helmets.

  – Fins. Alright. Hell of a year, huh?

  – Oh sure, but now…

  – Yeah, I know, late season, but they look good with Taylor.

  – Oh!

  She jumps up and down a little.

  – Miles! I love him! He’s so cute.

  She stops jumping.

  – But his ankle now.

  – What?

  – His ankle.

  Oh no.

  – Please don’t tell me.

  – On the TV last night. Sportscenter. Very bad.

  The Pakmail is right in the middle of a giant strip mall, so it only takes a minute or two for me to find a news kiosk with a copy of today’s Miami Herald. It’s on the front page: “Taylor’s Ankle Fractured, Docs Say Four Weeks Minimum.”

  THE FOOTBALL season is a long season. It’s not as long as the baseball season and they only play a tenth as many games, but the abuse your average starting football player absorbs in one game is at least equivalent to what a baseball player suffers in ten or twenty. Thus, one of the keynotes of prevailing wisdom among NFL coaches: as the season waxes, the practices wane.

  – So this moron, this spastic that they actually pay to coach the team, decides the guys weren’t hitting hard enough on Sunday when the Pats were making their run. So what’s he do? He calls contact drills. Contact drills in fucking December! So the starting defense is out there, running around, knocking the shit out of the scout squad. And you know those poor chumps are hating it. I mean, these guys get paid about minimum wage and now they have to run around and get the crap pounded out of them by a bunch of psychos who’re pissed at the feeb
who’s running the show. Meanwhile, the starting offense is down on the other end of the field, shooting the shit, and running pass drills in their shorts, right where the defensive guys can see them. Now tell me, you ever heard of a guy named Dillon Walker? No, you haven’t. The reason is that Walker was a hundredth-round pick defensive back who, until last Sunday, was a scout scrub himself. However, due to a series of injuries that have ravaged the secondary, he has been elevated to backup and even has a slim shot at starting free safety this Sunday should the gods not smile on Terrence Lincoln’s severe turf toe. Needless to say, this is a man with something to prove. And he’s proving it, flying around the field, hitting anything that moves, trying to show Coach his heart. For example, the scrubs run a little out, and they complete it. This is an out mind you, a play within ten yards of the line of scrimmage, a play the free safety should not be anywhere near. And he’s not, he’s ten yards away when the receiver steps out of bounds. Ten yards away, running full out, helmet down so he can launch himself at the poor scrub five yards out of bounds. And standing right on the other side of this scrub, who is standing there? Standing there and, I don’t know, talking on his cell to his agent about how he’s gonna spend all his bonuses or maybe chatting up a cheerleader, setting up a threeway with her and her fifteen-year-old sister or whatever the fuck twenty-two-year-old millionaires do on the sideline at practice, standing there is Miles Taylor, who is promptly crushed beneath the scrub and Dillon fuckstick Walker.

  I pause long enough to light a smoke and inhale half of it.

  – Walker bounces right back up and heads for the field, shit-eating grin on his face, ready to huddle up with the D and brag about the massive knock he just put on that pussy scrub. Dumb shit can’t figure out why everyone is standing around on the field, their faces white, staring at something behind him. So he turns to take a look and gets steamrolled by the entire starting offensive line, who have just watched him take out their bread and butter, the guy who has been helping them to earn their bonuses. And all those D boys, the ones who have been running around hitting in full pads while the offense took it easy, they take serious fucking umbrage. Riot. The O and D go at it; starters, backups, everyone except the scrubs, who wisely clear the field. And in the midst of this melee, as the coaches are screaming and trying to pull everyone apart, Miles Taylor stands up to announce that, hey, he’s fine, right before a huge mass of three-hundred-pounders lurches onto him and crushes his ankle.

  I inhale the second half of my cigarette.

  – I swear to God, I swear to fucking God, if I ever see that fucking retard coach walking down the street, I’m gonna stab him in the neck with a fucking fork. I hate football, I hate it.

  – So is that what you called to talk about?

  I breath deep and get my shit back together.

  – No, Timmy, it’s not.

  – Oh. So what’s up then?

  – What’s up is I’m sending you a package.

  – You’re sending me what?

  – I’m sending you a package.

  – What package?

  I’m standing at the pay phone in a Pemex near the Cancun airport. From here I can see the billboards for T.G.I. Fridays, Senior Frogs, the Bulldog Cafe, etc., that line the road to downtown. My pulse is still racing from my rant about Miles Taylor’s ankle, so I light another cigarette. ’Cause, hey, that’ll calm me down.

  – Timmy, I’m sending you the money.

  Silence.

  – Timmy?

  – Are you fucking nuts?

  – Look, I’ve thought about this.

  I have thought about it. A lot. And it breaks down like this:

  A) Tim is an ex-junkie. He is an alcoholic. He is a deliveryman for a drug dealer. He lives in Las Vegas. He is clearly the last man on earth any sane person would send four million dollars to.

  B) Tim knows where I am. He knows about the money. He knows about the several rewards available for information leading to my capture. He knows about the money the Russians would pay for my head. And for the years he has been privy to this information, he has kept his mouth shut.

  C) I am going to cross the border into the United States illegally. I cannot be caught with the money. If I am caught with the money all bets are off. If, however, the money is out there, I will have something to bargain with. I will have a tool with which to bargain for the safety of my parents.

  D) I. Can. Not. Be. Caught. With. The. Money.

  – I DON’T care if you’ve thought about it, I don’t want that shit anywhere near me. This is fucking Vegas. Did you know people out here train themselves to smell money? No fucking joke, I mean, I was happy to get outta Gotham and lie low and all, especially seeing as it’s on your dime, but I am not planning to spend my life here, because, basically, this town sucks. People are fucked up here. It’s all the money floating around, they can see it and play with it, but they can’t have it and it just makes ’em want it more. So the minute they smell it on you they come after it. Do not send me that fucking money, because I love you, you know that, but there are fucking limits to what a man can do. OK? Are we cool on this?

  – I already sent it.

  – What?

  – I already.

  – Where?

  – To your apartment. It should be there the day after tomorrow.

  – Man. Man! I cannot believe you fucking. Fine! Fine! It can get here whenever it wants, but I will not be here to receive. You got me? I will not be here. Good-bye.

  But he doesn’t hang up.

  – Did you hear me? I said good-bye.

  I take a last drag off my smoke, drop it on the ground, and crush the butt.

  – Someone found me, Timmy. He found me and threatened my parents and I killed him. And now I’m coming home.

  – Oh, shit.

  I EXPLAIN how it will work. How FedEx employs customs brokers who usher their customers’ goods through U.S. Customs, pay all duty and taxes, and have the package delivered right to the recipient’s door along with a bill for services and fees. I tell him all the paperwork is in more than shipshape, that the only danger is if the package is singled out for a random search. I tell him I don’t know the odds against that, but he’d have a better chance hitting the jackpot on one of those million-dollar slots.

  – I’m not sure how long it will take me to cross over, but I hope to be in California by early next week. All you have to do.

  – Shit, maaaaaaan.

  – All you have to do is hang on to the package, just stick it in a closet until I call and then you’ll just call FedEx and have them pick it up and bring it to me.

  – Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

  – I’ll… listen. When you get a page from number code four-four-four followed by a phone number, that’ll be me. Just call me at that number and.

  – Can’t you come get it yourself?

  – I need to stay with my folks, Tim. Until I can figure out a way to deal with the Russians, I need to stay and keep an eye on my folks.

  – Yeah, OK.

  – And, Timmy, listen to me. If someone does come for it, I mean the law or the Russians, all I want you to do is give it to them and just sell me out. Nothing is gonna happen, but if it does, do whatever you have to do to stay alive and out of jail. Anything they want. Got it?

  – Oh, I got that part, you bet I do.

  – OK. So what else, is there anything else?

  – Couldn’t you come straight here instead and just?

  – No. You know I can’t.

  – Yeah, right. Look, just take care of your folks. I gotta go.

  This time he does hang up.

  THERE’S THE usual collection of sunbathers spread around the beach, and a few hanging around the bar. Pedro is flipping burgers on the grill. I park the Willys next to The Bucket and get out. Pedro waves his spatula at me.

  – Hola.

  – Hey.

  I go behind the bar, grab myself a seltzer from the tub, and go stand next to him at the gri
ll.

  – You get a chance to talk with your brother?

  – I called.

  He gives the burgers a flip. They look good. I open the cooler, rip off a lump of ground chuck, and start kneading it into a patty.

  – What’d he say?

  – Nada.

  – He can’t help?

  – He didn’t say anything.

  I throw my patty on the grill as Pedro crumbles queso blanco on top of the ones he’s making.

  – He didn’t say anything?

  – Si.

  I watch the cheese melting.

  – Why didn’t he say anything?

  – He was not home.

  He chortles as he scoops the patties off the grill and onto buns. I grab the spatula from him as he places the burgers on paper plates with a handful of tortilla chips on the side and takes them to the folks at the bar. I poke my burger around the grill while he opens a few beers for his customers. He comes back and takes the spatula from me.

  – You have to… You move it and… aplastar?

  – Uh.

  – Aplastar. Like this.

  He makes little pressing motions with the spatula.

  – Squash?

  – Yeah! You squash the poor thing. All the juice, the good part, you squash it out. You got to wait. Tranquilo.

  So I wait while he lets the burger cook, puts the cheese on it, toasts the bun, and hands it to me when it’s all done. And he’s right: I do try to rush the things and they’re never as good as his. Pedro makes a great burger.

  – So do you know when he’s gonna be back?

  – Back?

  – Leo.

  – He’ll come tonight. Talk to you.

  – Cool.

  I stand there and eat my burger while he looks at me funny.

  – You going to talk to them?

  – Who?

  – Them.

  He points up the beach toward my bungalow. And for the first time I look that way and see the white police Bronco parked out front and the two guys in blue uniforms sitting on the porch. Sergeants Morales and Candito.